It was announced this week that folks using LinkedIn now have the ability to have their LinkedIn updates go to Twitter. I even got a personalized invitation to link my two accounts.

It’s a very simple process. Log into your LinkedIn account and look under ‘Applications’. There you’ll see the Twitter hyperlink. Click and you’ll get to Twitter settings:

Of course, you’ll need your Twitter log in information. After that’s entered in, then you’ll be able to apply further controls as seen in the graphic below. It’s nice to have the flexibility to control who sees the tweets and what kind of tweets you want to share.

Adding your tweets to LinkedIn probably isn’t a good idea if you’re using Twitter for personal purposes instead of business. It’s probably not advantageous to your professional profile to see ridiculous tweets coming through for co-workers and prospective employers to view. A workaround is the ability to use the hash tag #in when you want to have your tweets go to LinkedIn. For me, it’s a good fit since I use both Twitter and LinkedIn for business. Of course, you can post an update either at Twitter or LinkedIn and it will appear in both places.

Moving on…this week, I found a cool twitter tool I wanted to highlight and also bring another tool to your attention.

Twitter My Site

This is a quick cut & paste of some code to put on your blog or website. It puts a twitter-type icon that people can click on where they’ll be taken to Twitter and can choose to click on your ‘follow me’ button. This will take just 5” of your time. There are multiple icons from which to choose. Why not make it easy for someone to follow you?

Group Tweet

If you’re traveling to a conference and need a quick way to keep in touch with everyone, use Group Tweet. Perhaps you have a client list that depends on you for timely updating. Set them up as a group and keep them informed. Here are the steps:

1. Create a new Twitter account.
2. Make sure all updates are protected (see twitter help section). This means only group members will see the posts.
3. Register your twitter account at grouptweet.com.
4. The new group must follow all the individual group members and of course, each group member must follow the new group.
5. Any group member can then message the whole group.

Other Twitter tools and what they do:

Twellow, http://www.twellow.com/, is like a Twitter phone directory that sorts people by industry. This can be a great way to find people in your industry.

Twitterrific: http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/ Twitterrific is a fun application that lets you both read and publish posts or “tweets” to the Twitter community website.

Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/ See what’s happening – right now. Type in a keyword and view the tweet traffic.

Twhirl: http://www.twhirl.org/ twhirl is a desktop client for the popular microblogging service Twitter. It allows you to post short 140-character updates about what you are doing, as well as following your twitter friends and read all their updates, replies anyone sends to you, and direct messages to your account. You can also answer to another user by replying or sending him/her a private direct message.

Twitterfeed: http://twitterfeed.com/ a service that will automatically twitter any post that you publish on your blog.

GroupTweet: http://www.grouptweet.com/

When I started my weekly blog almost two years ago now, I had two reasons: 1. I just like technology. The commitment I made to post weekly keeps me always on the lookout for helpful tools or tips that I think the small businessperson will benefit from. It also keeps me ‘sharp’ (well, that’s debatable), by trying to be current on the new tools. 2. I was told it would drive traffic to my website, and I wanted that to help me in establishing my VA business.

So here’s a definition of Social Media from the Ebook: Let’s Talk Social Media For Small Business by John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.

Social media is the use of technology combined with social interaction to create or co-create value.

John was sponsored by Microsoft Small Business Live in the writing of this book, and is free for the downloading. It’s a great basic book for those of us getting started with blogging for business, and trying to understand how this ‘social media’ revolution works.

He begins by contrasting how we might find in our dusty Marketing textbooks the four P’s of Marketing vs. today’s four C’s of Marketing:

When most of us hear all these new terms about social networking and what services we should be signing up for, our heads spin. So he presents this graphic to guide us in our progression down the social media highway beginning with blogging and ending up with the micro, i.e. edgier tools like Twitter.

The book has several case studies where he makes the point that any business can distinguish themselves from their competition with their blogs, interactions with their community and the resulting establishment of trust among that community.

It’s a good read for those of us who see others talking about the above buzz words and wondering, “what does that mean”.

Below are links to some of the various social media sites as well as the sites that help manage our social media. Some are from the book (and a few of my own), along with their definitions you might find helpful:

Social & Business Networking:

LinkedIn – http://www.linkedin.com
Facebook - http://www.facebook.com

Plurk – http://www.plurk.com

Tools to Manage your Social Networks & Other Sharing Sites

Delicious http://www.delicious.com this is a bookmarking service that allows you to tag any page with a category and then share it publicly

PingFm: http://www.ping.fm This is a tool that will broadcast your blog, doings, etc. across multiple platforms

StumbleUpon - http://stumbleupon.com/
Flickr – http://www.flickr.com
YouTube – http://youtube.com
Slideshare – http://www.slideshare.net
Digg – http://digg.com
Friend Feed – http://friendfeed.com

Twitter and Twitter tools:

Twitter – http://www.twitter.com

Twellow, http://www.twellow.com/, is like a Twitter phone directory that sorts people by industry. This can be a great way to find people in your industry.

Twitterrific: http://iconfactory.com/software/twitterrific/

Twitter Search: http://search.twitter.com/

Twhirl: http://www.twhirl.org/

Twitterfeed: http://twitterfeed.com/

The book by Jantsch is a great starting place if you’ve just begun experimenting with social media marketing. His Duct Tape Marketing Website could be helpful to you. Another site I subscribe to is the ProBlogger.

I know following these suggestions work because after I set up my Facebook and LinkedIn pages and took advantage of the tools from within these apps to publicize my blog, my readership increased by five to six times. It does take time and effort and the content you publish definitely matters.

If any of you want to share your blogging stories or have tips, please leave a comment!

I blogged a couple of weeks ago on how Facebook added a chat feature where you can see how many of your friends are on-line from within Facebook and initiate a chat with them.

Just recently, I saw that Digsby (a chat aggregator, along the lines of Meebo), has a feature where you can chat with your Facebook friends without being logged into Facebook! Check out the screenshot below. Not only can you use Digsby as a chat aggregator, you can also add Facebook, MySpace and Twitter to Digsby to consolidate and manage most of your social networking sites in one place! They say other social networking sites are coming soon.

Here are the social networking features Digsby offers:

• Stay up to date with everything happening on your Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace account (other network support coming soon).
• Receive alerts of events such as new friend requests, messages, group invites, etc.
• The social network InfoBox gives you a real time NewsFeed of what your friends are up to. Everything from new photos, to status updates, to upcoming birthdays is just a click away.
• Set your Facebook and Twitter status right from Digsby.

Go to the web site and and download to your desktop. Digsby also has some other cool features that we will explore at a later time. Enjoy!